New Year Second Chance

I purse my lips. I want to believe Dax, but it’s just so hard.

“Jenna?”

“Okay,” I say again. “Listen. I have to go take care of Shanna.”

“I’ll talk to you soon. Take care. Bye.”

“Bye.”

I put my phone down beside me and rub my temples. My gaze wanders to the clock on the wall.

It’s not even eight in the morning and I already feel like shit. There goes my Monday.

“Are you okay?” my dad asks as he leans on the doorway to the kitchen with Shanna at his hip.

I must look like shit for him to be concerned about me.

“I’m fine,” I answer automatically.

“Sure?” he asks.

Okay. I must really look like shit.

I shrug. “It’s just… The world’s just so unfair, Dad.”

He walks towards me. “Why? You trying to fix the world?”

“No.” I rest my head on the back of the couch. “I just wish I was born on a different planet.”

“Hmm. I remember you saying that before.”

In spite of how shitty I feel, I find myself smiling at my father. When he sits beside me on the couch, I grab his arm and cuddle against him while touching Shanna’s cheek.

“I wish I was still that girl. I wish I hadn’t grown up.”

“You used to be in a hurry to grow up,” my dad reminds me.

“Yeah. That’s because you and Mom only showed me the good side of growing up. You made it seem easy. And fun.”

“Fun?”

“Well, nice.” I grab Shanna and put her on my lap. “You and Mom could do whatever you wanted to. You could watch whatever TV show you wanted to. Mom got to cook all her favorite food and you got to eat yours whenever you wanted. You both got to stay up late. You could buy stuff. You could tell Sarah and me to do stuff.”

My dad nods. “I guess that was fun.”

“You and Mom, you were just… happy.”

He snorts. “You and your sister were the ones who made us happy. We got happy from watching you two grow up.”

“But you were still happy,” I point out.

“Aren’t you happy now?”

“I was until about an hour ago,” I answer.

Which was when Emily told me what she’d read on the internet.

“And you’re blaming the world for it?” my dad asks.

“It’s not entirely innocent,” I say.

“You know, the world shouldn’t have a say in your happiness or your unhappiness. Happiness is your choice. Even if the world thinks you shouldn’t be happy, you can choose to be. That’s what your mother and I did. We chose to be happy, to look at what we had and not what we didn’t, to think about the right things we’d done and not the wrong.”

My eyebrows arch because this is the first time I’ve heard a paragraph from my dad. Also, because it’s the first time he’s spoken about my mother since she passed. And the first time ever that he’s spoken about their marriage.

“I know.” I squeeze his hand. “You and Mom were the perfect couple.”

My dad snorts. “No such thing.”

He disagrees?

“Your Mom and I, we went through a lot to get to the level where you saw us at,” my dad adds. “You and Dax will get there, too.”

My eyebrows bunch up even more. “I wasn’t talking about me and Dax, Dad.”

“Oh. He’s not why your panties are in a twist so early in the morning?”

I slap his arm lightly. “Dad!”

He grins and takes Shanna from me. I sit back.

“Well, the problem does concern the two of us, but it’s not between the two of us,” I explain.

“So it’s between the two of you and the world? I hate to say it, sweetie, but the odds don’t look good.”

I frown. “Dad.”

He doesn’t say another word as he bounces Shanna up and down on his knee. I know what he’s saying, though – that Dax and I should leave the world out of it and just focus on our relationship. Well, we were trying to do that. We were trying to just make each other happy. But the world wouldn’t leave us alone.

If only it would.

Suddenly, the doorbell rings. Normally, I’d jump off of the couch to get it, but in light of recent events, I don’t. What if it’s a reporter? A reporter polite enough to ring the doorbell? Or what if it’s some psycho who’ll barge in as soon as I open the door?

My dad stands up. “I’ll go get it.”

“I’ll go.” I jump up.

The last thing I want is for my father to get hurt.

I walk to the front door. Just before I open it, I draw a deep breath.

Maybe it’s just a neighbor. Or the mailman. Or Emily. No, not Emily. She would ring the doorbell until someone answered. Because come to think of it, the bell has stopped ringing now. Maybe whoever rang it has disappeared. Or maybe it was just some kind of technical error. Or a ghost.